Links and Books by Jo Michaels

Monday, February 29, 2016

Book Review - Asleep

Happy Monday, good people of the blogosphere! Today, I have a different kind of book review for you all. It'll still be my reader and editor's perspective, but since this is a young adult book, my daughter, from the book blog Isa Marie Reviews, is also going to give her two cents. Our review will be added to the 2016 Review Team pool of reviews. Be sure you bounce over there and check out some of the lovely reviews written by those awesome women.

If you think you'd like to keep up with Isa Marie's future reviews, subscribe to her blog here. She'll be reviewing Middle Grade and Young Adult novels over there. Time to get rollin'!

As always, a few details about the book before we get to the good stuff.

Rose Briar claims no responsibility for the act that led to her imprisonment in an asylum. She wants to escape, until terrifying nightmares make her question her sanity and reach out to her doctor. He’s understanding and caring in ways her parents never have been, but as her walls tumble down and Rose admits fault, a fellow patient warns her to stop the medications. Phillip believes the doctor is evil and they’ll never make it out of the facility alive. Trusting him might be just the thing to save her. Or it might prove the asylum is exactly where she needs to be.

Gotta love that cover, huh?

Okay, let's get to the review!

I picked up Asleep after attending a release party thrown by the author. There it sat, on my Kindle list, waiting to be read. Well, I have a rather impressive TBR, and I wasn't planning to dive in just yet. However, my daughter picked up the book on her device (she has access to my library), and she begged me to read it so we could talk about it. She was loving it. So, I did as I was told (good Mommy), and here we are to give you all the details about our thoughts. To start off, I'm gonna tell you: my daughter is ten. Now that you know where I got Asleep, and why I read it, let's move on to the juicy parts of this review.

From a Reader's Perspective:Jo: Rose Briar and I could possibly be friends if she existed in the world, but I'm not sure I would like her attitude at the beginning of this story. She seemed very much the "world is out to get me" kind of teen, and those chicks make me nutso. But, she had some excellent development throughout the story, and she emerged on the other side a better person despite all the crap she went through in order to grow. I have to say, Nurse Judy was probably my favorite character, though I didn't feel a true emotional connection to anyone I was reading about.

Truth is, I didn't even feel sorry for Rose and what she was experiencing. It may be my closed off side, but it's hard to connect with someone whose thoughts I can't follow. Make sense? I mean, the girl is half crazy, so nothing she's seeing or thinking makes sense. Ha! Anyway, she was a well painted character, I just wish there were more for me as a reader to identify with (or maybe I don't... Still on the fence with that one). Pacing was perfect. I never felt bored while reading. World building was spot on, and I could picture the institute in my head well. There were also a number of twists and things I was wondering about until the end. I'm pretty good, but some of those surprises were like: WOW. I'm now going to hand the reins over to the kidling.

Warning: There are a couple of F bombs in the book. If you're a parent who's really strict about that, prolly not the best read.

IM: I was bored and decided to go on Kindle to see if any new books were any interest to me. Searching through my section, I found that my mom put a few new books on there and found this one: Asleep, by Krystal Wade. I found the cover intriguing and downloaded it immediately to soon find out that Rose was the kind of girl that thought the world was out to get her. (Isa no likey) So eventually after making it through the first chapter of it I felt as if I couldn't put it down and read through the first sixteen chapters in one sitting. Ms. Wade, the pacing was perfect, and I never felt bored or that the book was going too fast. There were jumps, twists, and turns throughout the entire book. It made me question if Phillip was real or an figment of her imagination, and I just was itching to find out. Once I had finished it, good Lord I thought I would explode of all the other endings this book could have had. But, I highly suggest that you read this book, and I hope you're gonna be itching out of your skin to read it, too. :-D

From an Editor's Perspective:
I didn't find a ton of errors, but there was just one that kept popping up that had me pausing: Dr. Underwood closed her chart. Her is referring to Rose, but the sentence reads awkwardly. I caught it twice. Now, the kidling is the one that noticed it first, so if she's pointing it out, it has to be a little confusing. Other than that, nothing to write home about.

Rating:
1 Star for keeping me on my dang toes throughout
1 Star for pacing
1 Star for world building (that's one hell of an old building)
1 Star for making the character's head such a confusing place that I was never sure if I really wanted to be there or not
1 Star for grammar, plot, pacing, and consistencyOverall: 5 out of 5 stars. Highly recommended for those that enjoy a gripping thriller with lots of twists and turns.